Implantable medical drive with text messaging capability
A method of communicating text messages to a clinician as a reminder that certain program changes are to be made to a medical tissue stimulating device implanted in a patient. An external programmer capable of transmitting and receiving radio-frequency messages to and from the implant and visually displaying information is used to transmit text messages along with a text message initiation date and a text message termination date to the implanted device. These data are stored in a memory of the implanted device's microprocessor-based controller. Subsequently, at the time of a regularly scheduled patient follow-up, the implant may be interrogated by the external programmer and the text message read out and displayed if the time of the interrogation falls between the text message initiation date and its termination date. The method may further involve assigning a priority flag to the text message when it is stored in the implanted device so that upon interrogation, the text message may be displayed in a manner dictated by the priority code.
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I. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to implantable medical devices having a telemetry capability for transmitting information to and receiving information from an external programmer/monitor, and more particularly to an implantable device capable of storing text messages and relaying those messages to an external programmer/monitor for informing a clinician of certain events so that timely action can be taken.
II. Discussion of the Prior Art
Since the mid-70's implantable medical devices, such as implantable pacemakers, have been programmable from a location outside of the body. The Fischer U.S. Pat. No. 4,304,238 assigned to the assignee of the present invention was one of the first to disclose a digital, programmable, implantable pacemaker that would allow a clinician, having an external programmer, to change the pacing parameters of the implanted device. Thus, pacing rate, stimulation pulse width, stimulation pulse amplitude could be changed to meet a patient's need by transmitting digital values from an external programmer to a data storage register or memory in the implanted device. As the technology progressed, a myriad of additional parameters and operational modes of pacemakers and automatic implantable cardiac defibrillators can now be reprogrammed following implant.
Present-day implantable devices allow for bi-directional communication so that not only can data be transmitted to the implanted device, but also the implanted device may transmit information on its operational status to the external programmer. In this fashion, physiologic data, including electrograms can be temporarily stored in the memory of an implanted device and subsequently, upon interrogation by the external programmer, the information is transmitted to the programmer for display and interpretation by a clinician.
One great difficulty in performing a clinical trial is the tracking of patients that have been enrolled as participants in the study or trial. As an example, a patient with an implantable pacemaker or pacemaker/defibrillator may be enrolled in a particular study involving a protocol where certain programmable parameters of the implantable device are to be changed at different preestablished times and a determination is then to be made whether such change improved or worsened cardiac performance of that patient. While the relevant data for insuring that the protocol is followed may be recorded on the patient's medical chart, it would be convenient and beneficial if a reminder message could be presented to the clinician on the display screen of the programmer/monitor when the implanted device is being interrogated by the programmer. The method of the present invention provides such a system.
II. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention is directed to a method of communicating text messages between an implantable medical device and an external programmer where the external programmer has the capability of transmitting and receiving telemetry signals and for visually displaying information to a person. The external programmer is used in combination with an implantable medical device having a microprocessor-based controller with a memory for not only storing a program of instructions and operands executable by the microprocessor-based controller, but also text messages of predetermined number and length. The implantable device also includes a telemetry link that allows duplex communication with the external programmer. Initially, the external programmer is used to enter text messages, along with a text message initiation date and a text message termination date. Subsequently, at the time of an office visit by the patient, the memory of the implantable device is interrogated using the external programmer and the text message is read out over the telemetry link too the external programmer for visual display when the time of the interrogation falls between the previously stored initiation date and the termination date.
It is a further feature of the present invention that the text message be assigned a priority flag when it is transmitted to the implantable medical device. Subsequently, when the text message is read out, its priority flag can be used to determine the frequency at which the text message read out from the memory of the implantable device is displayed on the external programmer. The priority flag may also determine the manner in which the text message is displayed.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGSThe foregoing features, objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment, especially when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like numerals in the several views refer to corresponding parts.
Referring to
In accordance with the present invention, not only can programmable parameters be transmitted to the implantable device through the skin, but also text messages, composed on the keyboard 22 or otherwise made available to the programmer 18 may be transmitted to and stored in the memory of the implantable device 10.
Turning to
A random access memory (RAM) 42 is also connected by the bus 34 to the microprocessor-based controller 32 and is typically used to store programmable parameters and operands utilized by the program stored in the ROM 36. Programmable parameters may include stimulating pulse amplitude, stimulating pulse width, as well as many, many other such parameters commonly found in present-day pacemakers and defibrillators. In accordance with the present invention, there is also stored in the RAM 42 multi-character text messages. Associated with each of the text messages is an initiation date, a termination date and a priority flag or code.
With continued reference to
Referring to
The operations carried out in block 130 are reflected in the flowchart of
It can thus be seen that the present invention provides a method of communicating text messages between an implantable medical device and an external programmer, where the message can be visually displayed. Although the present method has been described with reference to specific details of certain embodiments, it is not intended that such details should be regarded as limitations upon the scope of the invention except as and to the extent that they are included in the accompanying claims.
Claims
1. A method of communicating text messages between an implantable medical device and an external programmer, comprising the steps of
- (a) providing an external programmer for transmitting and receiving data signals and for visually displaying information to a person;
- (b) providing an implantable medical device having a microprocessor-based controller with a memory for storing text messages and a telemetry link for allowing duplex communication with said external programmer;
- (c) transmitting at least one text message from the external programmer to the implantable medical device over the telemetry link along with a text message initiation date and a text message termination date;
- (d) storing the at least one text message in said memory;
- (e) subsequently periodically interrogating the memory with said external programmer and reading out the at least one text messages over the telemetry link to the external programmer for visual display when the time of said interrogation falls between the initiation date and the termination date.
2. The method as in claim 1 and further including the step of
- (a) assigning a priority flag to the text message transmitted to the implantable medical device.
3. The method as in claim 2 wherein said priority flag determines the manner in which the at least one text messages is displayed.
4. The method as in claim 3 wherein said priority flag determines the frequency at which the at least one text message read out from said memory is displayed on the external programmer.
5. The method as in claim 2 and further including the step of changing the priority flag when the at least one text message is read out to the external programmer.
6. The method as in claim 1 and further including the step of updating the status of a given text message in the implantable medical device following the performance of a responsive action by a clinician to said text message presented on the visual display.
7. The method as in claim 6 wherein the status updating comprises erasing the text message from the memory of the implantable medical device.
8. The method as in claim 6 wherein the status updating comprises revising a priority flag assigned to the message.
9. The method as in claim 6 wherein the status updating comprises changing one of said text message initiation date and text message termination date.
Type: Application
Filed: Nov 14, 2003
Publication Date: May 19, 2005
Applicant: Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc. (St. Paul, MN)
Inventor: Robert Sweeney (Woodbury, MN)
Application Number: 10/713,813